Reluctant Refuge: An Activist Archaeological Approach to Alternative Refugee Shelter in Athens (Greece)

Authors

Rachael Kiddey, School of Society and Culture

ORCID

• Rachael Kiddey: 0000-0002-2502-096X

Abstract

AbstractThe effect of the mismatch between the numbers of forced migrants that host governments are prepared to deal with and the actual number of those seeking refuge is that many forced migrants must find what I term ‘reluctant’ refuge—precarious, unofficial shelter. In this article, I first theorize ‘reluctance’, before introducing the concept of archaeology of the contemporary world in order to establish what makes fieldwork drawn on explicitly archaeological. Following this, I offer a concise history of the current political situation in Athens before describing my methodology. I then provide three ‘portraits’ of sites of temporary refugee shelter in the city—a squat, a non-governmental organization-managed hotel and a co-operative day centre—and discuss how these inter-relate to form a landscape of reluctant refugee shelter. The article contributes an explicitly ‘translational’ (Zimmerman et al. 2010) view of how experiences of shelter affect and shape forced displacement in Athens.

DOI

10.1093/jrs/fey061

Publication Date

2020-09-01

Publication Title

Journal of Refugee Studies

Volume

33

Issue

3

ISSN

0951-6328

Embargo Period

9999-12-31

First Page

599

Last Page

621

Recommended Citation

Kiddey, R. (2020) 'Reluctant Refuge: An Activist Archaeological Approach to Alternative Refugee Shelter in Athens (Greece)', Journal of Refugee Studies, 33(3), pp. 599-621. Available at: 10.1093/jrs/fey061" >https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fey061